User blog:Seigith/Succubus, leveling guide and other tips
'Introduction' So here I was, surfing through the pages of this great Little Empires wikia. As I gazed from page through informative page, it began to appear to me that something was missing, something important. What was missing? A good, full and informative guide to playing the Succubus. So, without further ado, here is my 4 cents. This is not at all a complete treatise on the Little Empires, or the Succubus class. There is a great deal of general information, and a great guide by Azyle00 on the Behemoth out there already. Thank you Azyle00, I will be borrowing some of his/her information and layout, adding much of my own advice, and modifying some of what I have already seen out there on the Succubus. Please, if you have a different idea than mine, or ways to improve this guide, let me know. My purpose here is just to have fun, and help you all out there have fun. Things are always changing in any mmo game, so take each suggestion here with a grain of salt and be ready to make changes as you need to. Finally, in this guide, I will be separating certain sections and tips into ideas for the casual gamer, and ideas for the more hardcore gamer. I myself am somewhere in between. I have a full time job, and am also an author, so I like to check in and play for just a few minutes here and there throughout the day on most days. Where I have separate advice, you will find: Casual: '''Hints for the more casual players. Hardcore: Hints for more frequent gamers on Little Empire. '''One final note: I am currently level 18, so I will not have high level tips yet, but I will add them to this guide as I level. 'General Things to Know' 1. The Succubus is a distance/damage class. This means that the Succubus should always be placed at or near the back of your formation. Whereas the other two classes can take a good deal of damage and spare their frontline troops, we cannot. We do not have the HP or the armor to do so. You should never place the succubus on the front line. Place them in the back, even when you are starting and have few/no other troops, the other players will then have to walk all the way to you, eating your damage the entire time. (But without other troops, you will almost guaranteed still lose). Again, never put the succubus in front, never put the succubus in front, never put the succubus in front! 2. You will lose many front line troops. It's going to happen. In the lower levels, many times you can set troop formations so that you don't lose many, but as you get into the mid levels, if you participate in the arena (and you should), be prepared to replace many footmen and trolls. 3. Units take time to build and aren't free. This doesn't change for the succubus, and as we lose front liners more often, we need to shorten the time as much as possible if we plan on staying in the arena. The good new is, especially at the higher levels with more expensive units, we won't need as many, and if we plan, we will rarely lose the expensive units (at least up to level 18) 4. The arena refresh wall. This won't be a problem for casual gamers, but if you are more hardcore, then you will need to plan accordingly. We will lose the cheapy units alot, but there are ways to replace them more quickly. The biggest thing to note at later levels is that, depending on the opponents you fight, you'll also have to replace your midline troops (ninjas/mages), so be prepared to build multiple magic libraries and upgrade them. 5. We love fighting big expensive troops. This may seem crazy, but realize that the more expensive the opponents troops, the more experience and resources we win. The succubus loves it when an opponent sends a bunch of knights with priests behind them. Nearly everytime after level 14, we'll be killing the knights (even with the priests) before or as they get through our first line of footmen (then the priests fall fast, so as we lose one line, maybe two, they are losing three!). 6.Damage, damage damage! The name of the game is dishing out damage like crazy, and keeping our troop ques full (less time, less resources). We hardly ever need priests at all, don't waste much time or money on them (I do keep a few on hand for the rare occassion I need them to keep my wolf riders alive, and I sometimes use a couple for two mages, more later) The idea here is to deal out so much damage that the opponents fall before a priest would matter on our side, and we excel at it. (there is an exception, which I will go over in my spell tips section) 7. You don't need to buy mana. Yes, obviously buying mana will get you spells and equipment more quickly. Yes, sometimes you'll lose to someone that did spend a weeks paycheck on a free game. When you do, either run, or just have a good laugh, because you can still buy groceries. Honestly, I've destroyed many an opponent with a full set of mana bought battle gear, HP regen equipment and all, and I've loved it. I have never once purchased mana, and never needed to. (Again, at level 18 right now, level 30 may be a bit different, but not if our opponents keep making it easy for us) Remember, you don't always have to defeat every unit on the battlefield, you can just destroy the castle wall to win. Sometimes, let their decked out hero walk right past, you'll likely annihilate their wall will all your damage output long before they can. 8. Friends give benefits. Add friends, even if they are random. You can help for experience, steal for resources (I usually only steal to meet the daily quest, don't need the resources), and they can speed things up and help you. Quid pro quo. Yes, they can steal your troops, so for any expensive troops, build one at a time. Casual: One final major tip, upgrade those gold and crystal mines asap. Yes, it will take time to recoup the cost, but as the mines will be your primary source of income, you'll recoup it in time and be ballin' (as they say). Hardcore: Consider leaving your gold and crystal mines at level 1, but definitely add more as they are available. As the majority of your income will be from conquests and arena battles, (and you will want the immediate funds for troop replacement) the resources are likely better spent elsewhere, until or unless you've got a ton to spare (in the mid teens though, I ran through my cashe of resources rather quickly until getting mages then wolf riders, so make SURE you can spare them, or you'll regret it while waiting later) 'Spell and Equipment Tips' Alright, so what kind of spells should I look at, and what equipment is worth buying? First, pass on all those spells that hit the enemies next to you. If the enemy units have made it that far and enough are still alive to worry about, you've done something wrong. Don't waste the space. Second, you may consider the spells that attack a line of enemies in front of you, but bear in mind, as you quickly cut through their forces with your units, less and less enemy units will be in front of you. ' So for spells, my mana is on the troop spells. Start with troll spirit. Our biggest problem is that darn behemoth steamrolling ahead with those priests behind him and him laying the smackdown on two of our troops at once. Troll spirit can stop him in his tracks, adding damage the whole while (because he is in our territory). He can't hit our other units unless they are exactly on the line of the troll spirits as well. Sure, other things may cause a bit more damage, but remember, the more of our troops stay in play, the more damage they are causing. 4 wolf riders if going to be causing more constant damage than an occasional spell. From troll spirit, consider Archer Spirit. I would personally pass on footman spirit, it hasn't done much for me. You'd think the idea would be the same as troll spirit, but they don't go quite as far (no spear) and usually the trolls do more than enough without their help. So I'll leave the third spell open until I experiment more with the damage spells, but my guess is the random area damage spells will be the way to go. Ok, so what about equipment? Raise spell casting times! Get those trolls and archers out there to save your costly troops faster and more often, and use them to doll out the damage. 6 archers lobbing arrows is better than your one (though high damage) Succubus shot. HP shouldn't matter often as you're in the back row. Defense, same thing. Movement speed, blah, we have the longest attack in the game, we rarely need to move up, and we don't want to get closer to troops hitting us back anyhow. So first spell casting times, then damage. Oh, by the way, don't waste your points on defense or hp either. Attack, attack, attack (now, i did raise my defense once, and I did raise my hp until it cost more than one point to do so, but I've rarely needed it) 'Leveling guide: Level 1-5 Alright, now to the meat and bones of the guide. So you just started out, you've got this sexy, but flimsy (aren't they all) Succubus that's just dying to lob out damage to your enemies. Great! It'll be fun ride, if you can be patient from time to time. Luckily, now isn't the time to be patient! Slap down those resource generating mines ASAP, get those houses in play so you can build troops, and get that barracks down. Create 12 footmen (no more, you won't need them) and get into the arena (you won't lose troops until level 6) So why only 12 footmen? You won't lose troops, so save your resources, times, etc. for when trolls are available, and don't use up your population limit, because your troops won't die yet! As soon as you can build trolls, build 24 of them. These numbers will make sense later. At level 5, build yourself 6 archers. So your troops should look like this: F- footman, T- Troll, A-Archer Lvl2: Two lines of footmen (you won't lose any permanently yet) keep our hero safe lobbing out damage, from this position, she can hit most of the enemy troops, and any enemy hero. Lvl3-5: Likely, you will not need all those trolls, but why not? Lvl5: So we have a row of footmen, 3 rows of trolls, and a row of archers before our hero in the back (you can add archers or whatever on the sides of the hero, but will rarely need them against most low level opponents) Note: Archers stand back 5 rows away from the nearest enemy they can shoot (their row plus or minus 1), so the only time other archers will shoot behind them is if the enemy moves up (which will absolutely happen at low levels, but will be rarer at higher levels) Levels 6-13 Now that you have reached level 6, you can and will start losing troops. Often you will find enemies still lower levels than yourself with pitiful forces that you can stomp over with no losses, go for it while you are building up a force of at least 6 ninjas (you did level up your shooting range, right?) Don't at all feel bad about entering a battle and exiting out, so you take a loss, losses don't lose you experience or resources (normal losses will lose you units though, so it's better to take a loss now than lose the battle. You have a choice in some more difficult battles. You can exit out, taking a loss and saving whatever troops you still have remaining at that point, or you can forge ahead to win, taking the losses as a resources (in the form of units) cost for experience. However, if you KNOW you're going to lose, exit out and flee. Come on, real women (and men) know that "she who fights and runs away lives to fight another day." Better to save the units to smash someone else. So now you have 12 footmen, 24 trolls, and a minimum each of 6 archers and 6 ninjas. The reason you want 12 footmen and 24 trolls is you will use one row of footmen (6) and 2 rows of trolls (12) with a row of ninjas and a row of archers behind. With 12 and 24, you can lose the first three ranks twice without having to completely stop your fights in the arena and wait. However, anytime you do lose some of your units, exit from the arena and start building them right away so they will be ready sooner. For the same reason, any opportunity you get to build another barracks, do so right away, it's worth waiting a bit to recover the resources your spend in the long run. When you reach level 9, you will be excited to unlock priests. They are amazing resources for the other classes, but not as much for the succubus. Go ahead and make a few if you don't need the resources elsewhere, but you won't need more than 4 max. The only reason you would is if you were moving your Succubus up to make room behind her, but then you'd lose the damage potential of your rank 5 archers. For us, the priests are underwhelming, I rarely use them, and even less in the mid teen levels. I'd even consider leaving them out altogether for now and holding off of the magic library altogether until later. Casual: '''If you are going to log out for a little while, go ahead and use the opportunity to level your mines first, then once your mines are fully leveled, start leveling your barracks, you shouldn't ever need to level your shooting ranges above the minimum level to build ninjas, though I would recommend when you can, adding a second shooting range. I wouldn't level your mines overnight though, use the opportunity to get the 9 hour resource loads. '''Hardcore: '''Build those other barracks asap, when you have enough resources to cushion, or if you are losing ninjas/archers too quickly, build that second shooting range. Again, even hardcore players will take breaks, when you are going to take a longer break, a couple hours or overnight, (you should sleep sometime) use the opportunity to level your buildings. (mines are a bit of an exception, as the 9 hours of sleep time should be used for raking in the dough. '''KEY- F- footman, T- troll, N-ninja, A-archer Levels 6-8 should look something like this in the arena: Now, this is a standard formation, if the opponent has no, or very little in the way of ranged troops, you should place more archers or ninjas in the ranks, as the enemy units will be forced to march toward you, but keep at least the footmen and a single row of trolls unless you are sure, they are cheaper and quicker to replace. Level 9-12 If you did make priests, you can go ahead and place them behind your archers on either side of the hero if the enemy has a bunch or ranged units, or other ninjas/archers if they do not. I wouldn't recommend moving your hero up, again, because you'll lose out on two archers, and the enemy shouldn't be reaching your hero anyway, if they do, you've likely lost all your troops, and you should probably have fled long before. Just as I mentioned above, the name of the game is damage, kill them before they kill you and you won't need the priests taking up valuable space. Levels 12 & 13 You can now build knights! Wow, you're thinking, they have so many hitpoints, some armor, and they run fast! I want them! Well, stop thinking that. They also cost 800 gold (you can make 10 footmen for 1 of them) and 100 crystal (you can make 5 trolls instead and still have gold left over), AND they take up a whopping 3 units of your cue, and are a beast to wait on training. Yes, there are situations when if you use them, you will take no losses at all, but I'd much rather save the unit inventory space and the money making footmen and trolls. Believe me, I learned the hard way. If you are going to make a few, you might put them behind your archers, as a last ditch troop, they run forward very quickly and can stampede over the enemies remaining distance units. However, usually they'll just sit there taking up space. So stick with the footmen and 2 ranks of trolls for the most part (ninjas shoot 4 ranks, which is why they aren't in row 3, and they cost about 3 times what each troll does), and you'll see you almost always kill their pricey knights before they get through your footman and troll cushion. Start building an extra magic library to prepare for mages if you can. Note: I haven't added tables from 9-13 for a reason, for the most part, little should be changing, but obviously modify your troops as you need to depending on your opponent. '''Another note: you can very easily not even build a stable at all until lvl 17. Levels 14 - 20 '''Levels 14 & 15 At level 14, you will unlock the mighty mages. With mages, it is absolutely imperative that you keep 3 rows of flesh armor (footmen and trolls) in front of them, as they fall quickly when they begin to be targeted. This is when choosing the spirit troops spells really starts to shine, as even against their ranged troops you can save a few hits on the mages while the spirit troops soak up some damage. Cast those spirit spells as fast as possible, mages are EXPENSIVE and take 45 min. to train. I HIGHLY recommend building multiple magic libraries and leveling them ASAP. Now, IF your opponent doesn't have knights, you can consider leaving ninjas in your ranks instead of mages, they'll die more often, but they are alot cheaper. If they do have knights, absolutely, mages are the way to go. Casual: as you are playing casually, it is very important to have multiple libraries to build mages 1 unit at a time (or friends will steal them, and they are too expensive to let that happen). I recommend, if possible, to check in once an hour really quick just to do resources and grab your mages and start training new mages. Once you have 12 mages, you can slow down the training, unless you plan to arena fight a bit more often. Hardcore: '''Freaking build multiple libraries and crank out those mages. As long as you're pretty sure you're going to check in about when the mages are completed, you can que multiple, but be sure, because if a friend snags them, you'll be sorry. '''NOTE: Don't be a jerk, leave your friends mages alone, or better yet, help them. Mages aren't cheap, and if they are queing multiple, they probably are more casual players, don't ruin their game experience. Now, for the most part, your troops should look like this: * Either unit, depending on opponents, most of the time I just kept in the mages and priests and had more building all the time. Level 16 & 17 Build and upgrade the stable to build ... Ahh, the wolf rider. You'll want 6 of these, 4 to use, and two in case, because they are a beast to wait on. If one dies, start replacing it right away. Please, don't be like so many others I've seen and place these in or near the front. These are 5 space ranged troops, they shouldn't be taking up valuable space anywhere further up. They are slow to train, expensive, and don't have great armor. I know you want to use two rows, but you are definitely better off placing them as I'm going to lay out here 90+% of the time. And don't build more than 1 stable, you don't need to waste the time or resources, and soon other troops will be replacing the wolf riders/knights. Layout: Level 18-20 At level 18 you will unlock the magic temple, and Shaman's, go ahead and build 4-6 of them. They will be at the back, so you shouldn't lose any at all, unless you are anhililated, which we've covered, shouldn't happen as you should run instead. As such, don't built more than 1, and there isn't any reason at this point to upgrade, unless you have resources to spare and you want to prepare for archangels. With Shamen, for the first time, you might consider moving your hero up a single rank. This way you can place 2 shamen behind her and up her speed by 40-80% (too bad it doesn't up casting speed). Why 40-80%? Because quite often the shamen to either side of her (behind the wolf riders) will cast their spell on her instead of the wolf riders (which is great, because she should be causing more damage than they are anyway). OR Up to you, I've used both, and I usually like the former. Placing Shamen behind the mages can result in their death, but against Knights has some benefits, and they don't take long to retrain. Level 21+ Level 21+ As I haven't yet reached this level, I will refrain from making recommendations. As I learn and level, and read your comments, I will make every effort to update this guide. I hope this helps (and yes, I even hope it helps you other players learn how to challenge us Succubi better). Bear in mind, I do work, and I am an author, so updates will not be immediate. You are welcome to comment, and to check out my work at my writing blog http://inkedkisses.wordpress.com. Please comment there as well. Happy playing! Hope to see you in the game. Category:Blog posts Category:Blog posts